PODCAST: PAT HELLER ON MINT AND COIN MARKET

CM: So Pat, the last time I saw you was two weeks ago when we were at the United States Mint’s stakeholder’s forum. What was your takeaway from that event?

PH: I was a little bit suspicious because sometimes a bureaucracy will have made a decision on what they are going to be doing and they hold an event like this to provide cover to pretend it wasn’t all their planning… but the impression I got and with the other I talked is that the people at the U.S. mint really were seeking legitimate outside feedback on how they do things… which is a positive thing. They started out the program explaining the history of the Mint, how the National Numismatic Collection came to be formed at the Smithsonian, and in the process pointed out some of the constraints they have, such as a lot of authorizing legislation for coins specifying the weight and purity of coins and sometimes even the designs, so there are limitations on how much flexibility they have- but once we had that background, they broke us up into groups to talk about different smaller picture issues and reconvened to go through what each of us had come up with on particular subjects, so there was a lot of good stuff raised.

One of the thing I was a little concerned about is that where the U.S. Mint is trying to sell primarily to the ultimate collectors, there is a natural conflict of when it sells to coin dealers – does it charge the same price as the public pays, which would discourage dealers from wanting to buy products and resell them, or does it discount them to dealers and possibly run the risk as has happened with some discount programs in the past, where dealers then price the products below what the mint is charging and potential take customers away from the U.S. Mint. That was an issue that wasn’t really brought up at all.

CM: As a coin dealer, obviously, the Mint is asking you for your advice on how they can better compete against you. It seems to me that the Mint is doing a fine job already of competing against the traditional rare coin market. Wouldn’t you say?

PH: There is that kind of conflict as well. Most collectors, just about all of them, in fact have a limit on how much they can spend and if you are spending a certain part of that budget or maybe, even all of that budget buying from the U.S. Mint direct that leaves less for other coin dealers. So there is the potential that some coin dealers may knock buying merchandise from the U.S. Mint in order to try to get more customers to shop with them.

That can be influenced if you have a situation such as has happened now where, I’d say the majority of U.S. Mint issues in the last 20 years, numismatic issues are now trading for below their issue price, so that would make it easier for coin dealers to knock buying new issues as they come out… and the ones that and the ones that have gone up in price have not gone up by enough to offset what has fallen on the other pieces.

To listen or read the complete transcript, see:
CoinWeek Podcast #45: Can the U.S. Mint Compete in the Current Coin Climate & The 2016 Election’s Effect on Gold (www.coinweek.com/coinweek-podcast/u-s-mint-compete-in-the-current-coin-climate/)

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